Reviews of films and books.
Charlie Chaplin’s greatest talent was his ability to mix heartfelt emotion into his comedies. From his touching father-son relationship with Jackie Cooper in The Kid to the utterly honest climactic romantic scene in City Lights, Chaplin manages to give you the warm fuzzies just …
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The canon of the greatest films constantly changes as each generation reevaluates yesteryear’s classics and rediscovers previously overlooked films. Oftentimes, films held in the highest esteem by contemporary audiences and critics do not become beloved by later generations. Evolving morals, changing tastes, and decades of …
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Some of the most valuable sources of information for silent and early sound films can be found in Moving Picture World, Variety, and numerous other motion picture trade publications. Summaries of lost films, gossip about long-forgotten stars, thousands of movie reviews from critics and …
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Last year I enjoyed reading Zane Grey’s most influential and frequently adapted for the screen Western Riders of the Purple Sage. This year I read Grey’s first Western novel the 1910 Heritage of the Desert and watched a couple of 1930s B-Western adaptations.
The …
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There may be no other sound more synonymous with the moviegoing experience than 20th Century Fox’s opening fanfare. When the Fox Film Corporation held a small stable of B-tier stars in the 1920s, it would be hard to predict that a generation of moviegoers would …
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I have a strange fascination with silent stars who never translated their careers successfully into the sound era. Last year I dove into David Stenn’s Clara Bow biography. This year I’ve already read and reviewed Tracy Gossel’s Douglas Fairbanks biography. Eve Golden’s John Gilbert: …
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